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By Joy Pouros
How do you create your menu — not just the print or digital version, but the actual items and prices that comprise your restaurant’s bill of fare?
That task of menu engineering is an art and a science that combines food costs, sales data, creativity, and ingenuity. And it is what ultimately determines the culinary experience your guests will have and the bottom line your business will enjoy.
Capturing Data
The technologies that today’s customers are embracing — things like restaurant-specific apps that provide personalized offers and loyalty perks, online ordering, and self-serve ordering kiosks — have made it possible to take menu engineering to new heights and improve margins in the process.
Those technologies not only deliver the convenience today’s consumers seek but also offer restaurants upsell opportunities that can build their bottom line. Sales data, for example, can be used to determine how many of each item sold, identifying what is most popular and most profitable.
But while most restaurants likely are utilizing those technologies to attract customers, many owners and managers aren’t using the valuable data they’re collecting to inform decisions they’re making about their menus.
That said, the quantitative data software provides is best used combined with qualitative data from consumers. Customer surveys are one way to elicit feedback, but that may be impractical for every change or test a restaurant wants feedback on. Staff will likely know how customers feel quicker, since they interact with them so frequently. Sales metrics may initially look good with an appealing description, but your staff will know if people truly love it or if they are getting complaints about a particular menu item.
Tracking Trends
Continuous access to the data technology provides can make restaurants agile enough to quickly change menus based on ever-evolving culinary trends and consumer preferences. It allows restaurants to create seasonal menus; dedicate an entire LTO to culturally significant occasions like Hispanic Heritage Month and Mexican Independence Day, offers specials that tie in with local festivals and community events, then assess if items from those special menus should become a regular part of the menu.
Just remember that as much as customers want to try new flavors, they want to find long-time favorites on the menu and options that meet special dietary requirements, too. That means keeping dishes that data shows your regulars count on and offering at least a few gluten-free and vegetarian options (even if those aren’t the most profitable options on the menu).
Menu engineering is an important but challenging task. Developing an internal process to strategically leverage technology can help restaurants stay abreast of trends, enhance the dining experience, reduce food waste, improve razor-thin margins, and increase profitability — all while staying true to their brand.
Joy Pouros works as the authority writer in the Training department at Culinary Software Services, where she writes on topics as diverse as human resource issues to increasing profits.
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